Snowman invasions

[TheMoneyMaker]

I mentioned it in a thread in the General section already but hear me out.

 

Every time someone completes the Lord Winter's Realm trial, have a random snowman invasion in a random zone announced in the appropriate Hero/Villain zone events channel and have snowmen start spawning in that zone like zombies.....just a seemingly unending winter horde accompanied by a brief snowstorm filling the air.

 

Just need to create levelless snowmen mobs, maybe add a few badges for defeating X amount of each rank, and give us the gray sky and snowfall effect for the duration. When the threat ends, the snowfall ends and it's assumed that local conditions warm up enough to melt the snow to explain why we don't have snow accumulation like in Atlas Park.

 

Badge Suggestions

Defeat 100 snowmen minions:  Polar Bear Challenge

Defeat 50 snowmen lieutenants:  Blizzard Survivor

Defeat 10 snowmen bosses:  Arctic Avenger

Defeat 1 snowmen elite boss:  Hypothermia

 

If enough snowmen are defeated in a given time, maybe Lord Winter shows up too.  Defeating Lord Winter awards the Snowball temp power as you collect a bit of snow to throw around and it has lasting (not permanent) effects.

 

[Rudra]

Problems with the proposal:

 

1) Weather effects can't be added except by changing out the map. Which is why Atlas Park only has snow after the Winter Event is turned on via patch and goes away after it is turned off via patch.

 

2) Hypothermia badge already exists. It is this year's event badge.

[Super Atom]

18 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Problems with the proposal:

 

1) Weather effects can't be added except by changing out the map. Which is why Atlas Park only has snow after the Winter Event is turned on via patch and goes away after it is turned off via patch.

 

2) Hypothermia badge already exists. It is this year's event badge.

 

They mean the screen effect, which does not need a map change.

 

I love snowman invasion idea. It's probably too late this year but def a good idea to freshen up next years event

 

Edited December 7 by Super Atom

[TheMoneyMaker]

6 hours ago, Rudra said:

Problems with the proposal:

 

1) Weather effects can't be added except by changing out the map. Which is why Atlas Park only has snow after the Winter Event is turned on via patch and goes away after it is turned off via patch.

 

See below.

 

6 hours ago, Super Atom said:

 

They mean the screen effect, which does not need a map change.

 

I love snowman invasion idea. It's probably too late this year but def a good idea to freshen up next years event

 

Exactly.

[TheMoneyMaker]

6 hours ago, Rudra said:

Problems with the proposal:

 

2) Hypothermia badge already exists. It is this year's event badge.

 

"Suggested"

 

Obviously something else should replace the already taken suggestion.

[Ukase]

 I do like some of the idea. Instead of seeing "The Winter Lord is causing havoc" messages, it could be akin the the rikti or nem invasions. The GM could be the same Winter Lord that spawns, only instead of spawning alone, he'll send the minions ahead. 

The only problem I have is the trigger. Right now, I have the liberty of killing a Winter Lord in the wild if I choose. But if we have a trigger, I do not, unless I want to do one of these events. And well...I'd rather not have the Winter Lord limited in that fashion. I don't want to be forced to do the Lord Winter's trial just to get a GM. 

[TheMoneyMaker]

20 hours ago, Ukase said:

 I do like some of the idea. Instead of seeing "The Winter Lord is causing havoc" messages, it could be akin the the rikti or nem invasions. The GM could be the same Winter Lord that spawns, only instead of spawning alone, he'll send the minions ahead. 

The only problem I have is the trigger. Right now, I have the liberty of killing a Winter Lord in the wild if I choose. But if we have a trigger, I do not, unless I want to do one of these events. And well...I'd rather not have the Winter Lord limited in that fashion. I don't want to be forced to do the Lord Winter's trial just to get a GM. 

You would still get standard Winter Lord appearances with opening presents, but that would be a spawn where the GM and surrounding mobs stand there and wait to be attacked. In addition, the triggered snowman invasion would have the snowman mobs popping up all around players and Lord Winter shows up after/if a certain amount of mobs are defeated.

 

As for the trigger, maybe have it trigger in a random zone as described above upon every completion of the Lord Winter trial, but also an additional time once per hour in a random zone. Don't want to overwhelm people with snowmen invasions all over the place constantly.

Edited December 8 by TheMoneyMaker

[srmalloy]

On 12/7/2024 at 10:41 AM, Rudra said:

1) Weather effects can't be added except by changing out the map. Which is why Atlas Park only has snow after the Winter Event is turned on via patch and goes away after it is turned off via patch.

The 'snowing around you' visual is a hidden power on you like the 'Instant Snowstorm' power you get from presents. What ties it to the zone is that it has a zone-geometry-based lockout, so that when you go under an overhang (like into a zone gate, or into a non-instanced building like the Vanguard building or City Hall, or inside or under the tram station) the snow effect stops. This would have to be done for each of the zones you wanted to have the same player-affecting snow, unless you wanted it to be just a blanket snow effect, regardless of where you were, which would cause problems with, say, the Icon outlets.

 

Now, as a minor thing, I remember back during the first winter event that there was a map for Steel Canyon that had the two lakes frozen over; if that map still existed, it could be swapped in for a future winter event and spread the skating out a bit more, but that would have to be researched by the HC staff before it could be considered.

[Rudra]

2 hours ago, srmalloy said:

The 'snowing around you' visual is a hidden power on you like the 'Instant Snowstorm' power you get from presents.

Thanks, but not what I was referring to. And @Super Atom already pointed out that the snow on the ground was not what the author meant. (Edit: Despite the comment about

  

On 12/7/2024 at 11:36 AM, TheMoneyMaker said:

When the threat ends, the snowfall ends and it's assumed that local conditions warm up enough to melt the snow

 

Melting the snow away tells me ground snow. Especially as follow up comment to the snow fall ending.)

 

Edited December 11 by Rudra

[TheMoneyMaker]

12 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Thanks, but not what I was referring to. And @Super Atom already pointed out that the snow on the ground was not what the author meant. (Edit: Despite the comment about

  

 

Melting the snow away tells me ground snow. Especially as follow up comment to the snow fall ending.)

 

You can read into it how you like but my point of saying a melt was to explain why there would be snow in the air but none on the ground.

[Rudra]

3 minutes ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

You can read into it how you like but my point of saying a melt was to explain why there would be snow in the air but none on the ground.

There doesn't need to be a reason for that. It often snows without any ground accumulation. Like out here where I live.

[Psyonico]

2 hours ago, srmalloy said:

snowing around you' visual is a hidden power on you like the 'Instant Snowstorm'

 

Seeing as players can get Instant Snowstorm as a temp power from presents, I see no reason it couldn't be included.

 

I don't know much about the geometry thing, but I'd suspect making changes just to the couple of Icon locations wouldn't be too big of a deal*

 

*standard code rant applies.

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, Psyonico said:

I don't know much about the geometry thing, but I'd suspect making changes just to the couple of Icon locations wouldn't be too big of a deal*

 

*standard code rant applies.

It's not just the icon; any "indoors" location on a map would have to be excluded from the snow animation -- Icon, all the stores, the Universities, the Midnighter Club, the building on the other side of the square in Steel where you get sent doing the invention arc, hospitals, the AE buildings, the Vanguard offices in FF and PI, the Portal Corp buildings, inside and under the tram stations, the large building behind Statesman's statue in Kallisti Wharf, the abandoned labs, any underground area (like the tunnels on the E side of Brickstown)... These would all have to be special-cased the same way similar locations in AP are. Is it worth the effort? I don't know; the amount of global interest in something like this would need to be studied before any sort of prioritization could be done, if it gets into the work queue.

[UltraAlt]

On 12/7/2024 at 1:36 PM, TheMoneyMaker said:

If enough snowmen are defeated in a given time, maybe Lord Winter shows up too.

 

Thinking about this, I think I would find this more fun if you flip it and keep it related to the present opening.

When a Winter Lord is spawned in a zone, it starts a Winter Invasion that keeps going on until the Winter Lord is defeated.

... and, yeah, I know what kind of chaos this would form in starter zones ... players would be calling for help to take out the Winter Lords even faster .... you couldn't just stand around where the Winter Lord is spawned waiting to form a team.

 

Just an idea to add into the winter mix of ideas.

Badges are always good.

[TheMoneyMaker]

On 12/11/2024 at 1:32 PM, Rudra said:

There doesn't need to be a reason for that. It often snows without any ground accumulation. Like out here where I live.

And yet, we never see snow in any zone other than Atlas Park because Atlas Park is the zone that was made to have snow on the ground. I think you're so intent on looking for ways to shoot down ideas that you just over-analyze every little bit of phrasing and trying to assign extra meaning to it.

[Rudra]

23 minutes ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

And yet, we never see snow in any zone other than Atlas Park because Atlas Park is the zone that was made to have snow on the ground. I think you're so intent on looking for ways to shoot down ideas that you just over-analyze every little bit of phrasing and trying to assign extra meaning to it.

I'm not shooting down the OP. I pointed out problems in the OP. If the problems get fixed, then there aren't any more to worry about. (Edit: So your remaining problem is what you are going to call the last badge.)

 

Edited December 12 by Rudra

[TheMoneyMaker]

As a suggestion, I'll offer Deep Freeze, know that someone will find fault with it. And I say these are all just suggestions to get developer minds thinking about the idea. Ultimately, they get to decide everything, so I'll leave the suggestions and maybe they'll use them or be inspired with better ideas than my own.

[Ultimo]

The only thing with the various "invasions" that I don't like, is that the various enemies aren't invading for any reason.  They're just there to get beat up, then they go away.  People say, Oh, they're here to beat up the heroes... but WHY?  If they go into a zone and aren't opposed... what would they do then?  Send troops to occupy the zone?  Take out the local authorities?  What?  They wouldn't just throw troops into a battle without some kind of objective.  They want to defeat the local heroes?  Ok, to what END?

 

I'd say the same for the snowmen (or zombies, or what have you).  Give them a PURPOSE that they might actually achieve, and I'm all for it.

 

Oh, and make them possible for everyone to fight.  I thought I'd try helping out against Winter Lord in Atlas, and my Tanker character took half his health in one hit, from one of the snowmen.  Not even the Winter Lord.  There was just no way for him to get involved because as soon as he got hit even once, he had to run away (which with the host of slowing effects layered on him was nearly impossible to do).

Edited December 14 by Ultimo

[TheMoneyMaker]

24 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

The only thing with the various "invasions" that I don't like, is that the various enemies aren't invading for any reason.  They're just there to get beat up, then they go away.  People say, Oh, they're here to beat up the heroes... but WHY?  If they go into a zone and aren't opposed... what would they do then?  Send troops to occupy the zone?  Take out the local authorities?  What?  They wouldn't just throw troops into a battle without some kind of objective.  They want to defeat the local heroes?  Ok, to what END?

 

I'd say the same for the snowmen (or zombies, or what have you).  Give them a PURPOSE that they might actually achieve, and I'm all for it.

 

Oh, and make them possible for everyone to fight.  I thought I'd try helping out against Winter Lord in Atlas, and my Tanker character took half his health in one hit, from one of the snowmen.  Not even the Winter Lord.  There was just no way for him to get involved because as soon as he got hit even once, he had to run away (which with the host of slowing effects layered on him was nearly impossible to do).

Zombies don't need a purpose. They're there to eat brains and attack anything that gets in their way.

Rikti purpose is to weaken Earth defenses, thus they drop bombs in addition to troops.

Nemesis invasion seems to have the least amount of purpose, like "I'm attacking because I can, mua-ha-ha-haaah!!"

 

The proposed snowman invasion's purpose is purely retaliatory.  Lord Winter's realm was attacked (successful completion of trial), so he sends snowmen to the realm where the attack originated from.

[Snarky]

Frozen snow balls badge…

[Ultimo]

22 hours ago, TheMoneyMaker said:

Zombies don't need a purpose. They're there to eat brains and attack anything that gets in their way.

Rikti purpose is to weaken Earth defenses, thus they drop bombs in addition to troops.

Nemesis invasion seems to have the least amount of purpose, like "I'm attacking because I can, mua-ha-ha-haaah!!"

 

The proposed snowman invasion's purpose is purely retaliatory.  Lord Winter's realm was attacked (successful completion of trial), so he sends snowmen to the realm where the attack originated from.

Well... the zombies could have a purpose, if there was someone summoning them.

The Rikti are the ones that bug me the most.  If they're weakening Earth's defenses, WHY are they doing it?  They must have some other purpose that the "invasion" is in service of.  For my part, I'd love to see the invasion have a result, if the heroes can't mount a sufficient defense.  Perhaps it could be as simple as making the relevant zone(s) Rikti controlled, with all resident spawns of enemies being replaced by Rikti... heroes and contacts might also be replaced by Rikti, or might give different missions, specific to repel the Rikti garrison.  There are other possibilities, I'm sure.

Nemesis too, should have a purpose.

[Rudra]

32 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

The Rikti are the ones that bug me the most.  If they're weakening Earth's defenses, WHY are they doing it?  They must have some other purpose that the "invasion" is in service of. 

Except the Rikti invasion does have a stated purpose? It's explained in the game, just not as part of the invasion. And the zone invasion event ties in to the game stated purpose.

 

  Edit:

32 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

For my part, I'd love to see the invasion have a result, if the heroes can't mount a sufficient defense.  Perhaps it could be as simple as making the relevant zone(s) Rikti controlled, with all resident spawns of enemies being replaced by Rikti... heroes and contacts might also be replaced by Rikti, or might give different missions, specific to repel the Rikti garrison. 

We discussed this on the previous threads about the invasion events. The problem with this proposal is, or was rather, illustrated by another MMORPG where the enemy faction called the Chosen could take over zones if not held back or pushed back. And until the server reset, this often made those zones unplayable. (Edit again: And it wasn't that those zones were no longer available to players, it was because it didn't matter how many players entered at once to try and take the zone back, they just got obliterated as a group by the waiting enemies.)

 

Edited December 15 by Rudra

[Ultimo]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

Except the Rikti invasion does have a stated purpose? It's explained in the game, just not as part of the invasion. And the zone invasion event ties in to the game stated purpose.

 

  Edit:

We discussed this on the previous threads about the invasion events. The problem with this proposal is, or was rather, illustrated by another MMORPG where the enemy faction called the Chosen could take over zones if not held back or pushed back. And until the server reset, this often made those zones unplayable. (Edit again: And it wasn't that those zones were no longer available to players, it was because it didn't matter how many players entered at once to try and take the zone back, they just got obliterated as a group by the waiting enemies.)

 

If there is a purpose to the invasions, it's not being implemented very well, because the enemy never does anything to achieve their purpose... and never actually DOES achieve it.

 

As for the latter point, it would only make the zone unplayable if it's implemented poorly.  Suppose the zone in question is King's Row.  Right now, you have groups of Clockwork, Vazhilok, etc. all standing around doing essentially nothing.  My suggestion above is simply to replace those NPCs with Rikti, at a zone appropriate level (or non-level, as with the beaming in ones).  You could have ships flying around, but they wouldn't be attacking anything, they'd be largely cosmetic (though, they COULD be attacked).  Meanwhile, quest givers might be moved to "safe" spots, where the Rikti wouldn't find them, or some such.  Players could still do their missions normally, but they might have to deal with Rikti mobs instead of the usual ones.  The main hero of the zone (Blue Shield in King's Row) would have a set of special quest objectives open to everyone in the zone.  It might include instanced missions, or zone missions (eg. defeat 1000 Rikti, which EVERYONE in the zone could contribute to, or take down the patrol ship (again, it would likely need everyone to participate).  Eventually, one of these kinds of objectives might be completed, and the zone would reset.

 

That at least puts some semblance of purpose in the event.  Right now, if everyone ignores it, nothing happens.  The Rikti don't do ANYTHING.

 

But, this is just one quick idea off the cuff.  I'm sure something better could be devised.

[TheMoneyMaker]

25 minutes ago, Ultimo said:

That at least puts some semblance of purpose in the event.  Right now, if everyone ignores it, nothing happens.  The Rikti don't do ANYTHING.

 

Invasion events aren't the story. They're something that happens that players can choose to take part in or not. Spider-man doesn't run headlong into every Kree, Skrull, or other alien invasion because the Fantastic Four or Avengers are better equipped to deal with it. He might have to hit a few aliens on his way to deal with another problem or might be too busy. So if you choose not to participate and the invasion went away, you can assume other heroes got involved and repelled it or that some behind the scenes story that isn't for you occurred.....maybe the aliens achieved a goal and backed off, maybe they realized their current efforts were futile. Doesn't matter. All that matters is did you choose to be on the ground to meet them or not.

 

Why are the aliens attacking? Takeover attempt? Raiding for resources? Something else? It doesn't matter in the heat of the moment of the invasion. You want story purpose for aliens, visit the Vanguard outpost and do missions.

 

Zombie invasions aren't about a central figure guiding them. It's rampant undead on the loose. Why? Chemical spill reanimating the dead? Some ancient deity giving life to them? Alternate reality where everyone is undead briefly overlapping the main reality? None of it matters. Make up whatever head canon you want for your character's involvement or lack thereof.

[Zappalina]

Those snowmen are adorable with their big owly faces 😍 so yes please 🤣 - As someone mentioned on a WL team, where are they getting those gigantic carrots tho?